Flexible Working:

A Guide to Creating and Managing a Flexible Workplace is a practical manual for organisations and individuals interested in adopting new working practices to improve organisational culture and competitiveness. Its ultimate purpose is to help organisations improve business outcomes, such as greater productivity, through the successful implementation of flexible working; thereby assisting employees achieve greater w or k/life balance.

Toshiba's 2004 Mobility and Mistrust research report showed that flexible working was a less common workplace practice in smaller organisations than large corporations, with management beliefs, including mistrust of employees, one of the reasons for the slow uptake of the practice. T he difficultly in monit or ing and supervising employees was perceived to be the greatest disadvantage of flexible working; in other words, many organisations simply didn't know how to manage staff when they couldn't see them. This indicated that there was scope to increase trust by using performance criteria rather than attendance-based evaluation techniques.

As such, Toshiba arranged a series of focus groups with a cross section of managers and employees in SMBs to understand their specific issues for inclusion in the guide. This included: mothers who have returned to work; male and female employees; and business managers who would consider offering flexible work practices. In addition, Toshiba has been working with a consortium of blue-chip organisations, called the Flexible Workplace Special Interest Group to share experiences, resources and ideas around flexible workplace practices.

The guide includes seven chapters addressing the ‘why', ‘what', ‘who', ‘how', ‘where' and ‘when' questions behind flexible working. It includes:

• Tips on managing remote workers and building an effective organisational culture with flexible workers, including maintaining team spirit, building trust and communication amongst team mates;
• Suggestions on how to measure the performance of employees based on productivity and business needs, rather than by ‘presence' or time;
• Examples on how and why companies have implemented flexible working, including case studies from WMC Resources;
• Step-by-step guides for setting up flexible working practices;
• Worksheets, including: a cost/benefit analysis to determine the financial benefits available; employee self assessment to check individual suitability for flexible working; technology assessments; and team building;
• Guidance on how to secure managerial buy-in for implementing flexible working;
• Advice on building flexible workplace policies; and
• Information on the practical requirements for successful flexible working, including technology requirements, home office environments.